This summer Sophie celebrated her 9th birthday. She is getting so big! Due to COVID-19, we didn't know if we could have regular birthday parties this year. Lots of people did "drive by" birthdays where family and friends would just drive past their house at a certain time with signs and balloons. But we decided to go ahead and have a party for Sophie. She decided she wanted to have a "Star Party". So we planned to paint pictures of the night sky and watch a movie outside.
We always let the kids pick the restaurant they want for dinner on their birthday. Since most restaurants still weren't open for dine-in options, I picked up some Cafe Rio and we ate it at home. Sophie loves Cafe Rio and orders her own whole, massive burrito.
Isaac and I finished the shop (mostly) before Aspen's birthday party, and it has been so great for these kind of parties and activities. It is so nice to have a space where they can make messes without worrying about things getting messy or ruined. So we set up all the painting supplies for all the girls down in the shop. A few hours before the party I painted a sample picture to make sure it would be easy enough for the girls to do it in the time allotted. It was interesting watching the girls paint. Sophie and Aspen were by far the best artists. Some girls used so much paint the whole thing was dripping. Other girls couldn't stop painting. I told them how to lightly smear the paint from top to bottom to mix the colors nicely and then to STOP. But tons of them had to keep going back over it and making it mix poorly. But overall, I think the pictures turned out really cute.
I bought an outdoor projector so we could watch the movie outside (due to COVID). Isaac tested it at the cabin to make sure everything worked, but unfortunately you can't see the picture unless it's super dark. The sun hadn't been setting until 9pm or so, which is too late for these little girls. So Isaac set up the movie in the shop, complete with bean bags and blankets. But for some reason he couldn't get the sound to work. He tried using various different devices for about 2 hours and still couldn't figure it out. So at the last minute we had to bring the girls upstairs to watch the movie, "Rocketman", instead. Fortunately everything worked out ok. Our timing was thrown off due to the technological difficulties, so the girls didn't get to finish the last few minutes of the movie.
This year Sophie got a new bike for her birthday. All the bikes in the world were sold out, so it was fairly challenging for Isaac to find one. Fortunately we started planning over a month in advance, so we were able to get the bike we wanted. She also got a Harry Potter shirt, snow cone machine, and a bow and arrows.
Then the next night we celebrated Sophie's birthday with the grandparents. Sophie wanted to have a star cake. I wanted to make a galaxy mirror cake for Luke's Star Wars party, but I was afraid of ruining it. But I tried it for Sophie's cake. It was actually a lot of fun to make and worked really well. Grandpa Dee couldn't make it to her party because he was rafting the Grand Canyon. But she got a fun Harry Potter Lego set from Grandma Sugar and a book and outfit from Grandma Karla.
We love Sophie so much. Here are some things about Sophie:
- Sophie loves to read. She is a bit of an introvert and sometimes gets sick of playing with other kids, so she will disappear into her room or the book nook and read a book. But she doesn't like math very much. She says she isn't good at it, but I know she is really good at math, she just isn't very confident.
- Sophie is a peace maker. There has been some neighbor drama with the little girls this summer. There are about 5 to 7 girls who play together each day. Often they can't agree on what to play and some feelings have been hurt. Sophie hates seeing other kids sad or feeling left out. She always tries her hardest to make everyone feel included.
- Sophie loves stuffed animals. She is always trying to get more and more.
- Sophie is getting good at playing the flute, but she doesn't like to practice.
- Sophie had her frenectomy surgery this year. I thought they were just going to clip her lip muscle, but the dentist removed the whole thing. I was shocked, but Sophie handled it really well.
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